ESCANABA — After years of struggling with downtown traffic, parking and pesky tourists spending money at local businesses, the City of Escanaba appears to have finally found a solution: tear up enough of the city that nobody can get there.
Business owners along Ludington Street are watching the most important months of their year disappear behind orange barrels, excavators and enough ROAD CLOSED signs to establish an international border.
Summer tourism is normally when downtown businesses make hay before the long Upper Peninsula winter arrives. This year, they’re mostly making eye contact with each other from across an empty street.
A tumbleweed spotted rolling down Ludington Street Tuesday was briefly mistaken for a customer.
City officials have repeatedly assured the public that downtown remains open, even installing a large “PLEASE WALK DOWNTOWN” sign to encourage visitors to park somewhere — presumably wherever they can still find pavement — and continue the rest of their shopping trip on foot.
It’s a bold tourism strategy.
Welcome to Escanaba. Park over there. No, not there. That road is closed. Try the next block. Nope, that one too. Eventually just leave the truck in Gladstone and walk in.
Residents attempting to travel anywhere else in town have encountered a similar problem. Streets appear to be closing faster than they reopen, producing a constantly evolving maze in which a five-minute trip to the grocery store can become a sightseeing tour of neighborhoods you didn’t know existed.
The city continues issuing press releases announcing additional closures with impressive consistency.
Another street closed Monday.
Another intersection closed Wednesday.
Another detour beginning Friday.
What residents have been waiting for is the mythical Escanaba press release announcing that something — anything — has opened back up.
Public Works Supervisor Kent Dubord admitted even he has lost track.
“I used to have a construction map,” Dubord said. “Now I just drive until I hit a barricade, turn around and try something else. Same as everybody.”
Asked how many streets are currently under construction, Dubord stared silently into the distance for several seconds.
“Most of them?”
Even Escanaba’s annual Sidewalk Sales surrendered. The downtown tradition has now been postponed twice because of construction and rescheduled for September 4, allowing merchants to finally celebrate one of the area’s signature summer events just in time for summer to be basically over.
Meanwhile, business owners are doing everything short of dispatching search-and-rescue teams to bring customers downtown. Merchants have promoted alternate entrances, adjusted operations and even offered golf-cart rides around construction zones — all while watching a limited Upper Peninsula tourism season tick away.
The city continues asking residents, visitors and businesses for patience.
Businesses, unfortunately, cannot ask their landlords, employees, utilities and suppliers for the same thing.
Summer revenue lost in July and August doesn’t magically reappear when the pavement does.
For now, the orange barrels remain firmly in place, another closure announcement is presumably being drafted, and Ludington Street businesses continue waiting for customers to return.
The tumbleweed, meanwhile, made it farther down Ludington Street than most motorists.
It was last seen ignoring a detour sign and heading toward Menominee.
